f/k/a archives . . . real opinions & real haiku

Parking Impertinence: Naturally, everyone around here (except for Prof. Yabut) is shocked: Schenectady city hall workers too lazy to walk a block to their free parking lot? Parking all day, despite the direct disapproval of Mayor Brian U. Stratton, in front of the very businesses His Honor is constantly boosting and trying to revive? And not feeding the meters at all, or staying all day and feeding them past the limit for each meter? Sadly, the answer to each question is “yes,” as you can see in this photo, and read about in this article from the Schenectady Daily Gazette (“Businesses want workers to use city lot: Jay Street spaces occupied all day,” by Kathleen Moore, March 14, 2008).

Corporation Counsel L. John Van Norden and City Clerk Carolyn Friello are among the offenders. Note that Friello quite frankly admits she’s just being lazy, while Chief City Lawyer Van Norden seems to be waffling and employing weasels words. According to the Gazette:

Van Norden said he, too, would park in the employee lot if there’s no other place to park.

“Maybe I’ll have to park in the lot. I’ll certainly do that if that’s what’s necessary,” he said. “There are some city staff that prefer to feed the meters. They don’t want to walk the block. But the mayor is very business-friendly and he’s made his preference clear.”

For more parking meter follies in Schenectady, see the f/k/a reprint of my Prairielaw.com article “Parking Meters 101” (June 2000), which talks of proper parking meter policy and enforcement and broader regulatory philosophy. I point out (contrary to the impression given by Corporation Counsel Van Norden), that it is not lawful in Schenectady (and probably in virtually all places with meters) to keep feeding a meter all day, past the meter’s stated time limit; the limit is there to allow for turnover in use of the spot. See, City of Schenectady Municipal Code Sec. 248-72, which says “It shall be unlawful for any person to deposit or cause to be deposited in a parking meter a coin for the purpose of increasing or extending the parking or standing time of any vehicle parked beyond the period herein prescribed.”

I can’t resist repeating here one of my very favorite Schenectady Law Enforcement Stories:

In October 1996, attorney Diane Betlejeski [now known as Surrogates Court law clerk Diane Erzinna] parked her Ford Contour one morning between her office and family court at a spot never marred by a meter. Less than two hours later, she returned to discover a meter installed next to her car and a ticket flapping on her windshield. When the parking bureau refused to drop the ticket, Betlejeski demanded a trial and won her case against over-zealous enforcement [with me at her side as potential witness — I saw this story unfold from my law office window — and moral support].

steady rain
a pickle
in the parking lot

……. by Tom Clausen

If you recall this blurb from August 2007 (scroll down to “Mayor in a Hurray”), you might surmise from the discussion of Brian Stratton’s parking peccadilloes that the Mayor might not have a lot of moral authority on the issue, or might not be taken seriously on this topic by his top staffers, who apparently like to take a parking perk or two wherever they can find one. (See The Unadulterated Schenectady website for the photo evidence, and the TU Local Politics Blog for further discussion.)

Discovery channel –
an older male vanquished
heads for the hills

just arrived —
their dog sniffs
our tires

…… by Tom Clausen – Upstate Dim Sum (2003/II)

You can often find me at the end of my block of Washington Ave. in Schenectady, gazing at the Mohawk River — with the Isle of the Cayugas and the Village of Scotia across the way. Here are two full-color photos I took around 5 PM on the last two Saturdays. The promising early thaw of March 1st has yielded to days of rain, melted snow, and flood watches. The lucky folk among us will find the beauty in both scenes. [Click to find more photos of ice jams, ice floes and flooding along the Mohawk at Schenectady NY, at my weblog suns along the Mohawk.]

– photo: Mohawk River, at Schenectady Stockade, Washington Ave., March 1, 2008, by david giacalone –

march thaw
ice floes
coming and going

…… by dagosan

– photo: Mohawk River, at Schenectady Stockade, Washington Ave., March 8, 2008, by david giacalone –

march rain —
a flood-warning sign
where the snowman stood

…… by dagosan

afterthoughts (May 31, 2008): Occasionally, when I take a weekend picture of the Mohawk (and the Isle of the Cayugas) from my backyard or the end of my block that I particularly like, I’m going to add it here, creating my own little riparian-neighborhood photo album. (You can click on each for a larger version.) update: For many more of my Mohawk River and Stockade sunsets, see my photoblog Suns Along the Mohawk.

– taken May 10, 2008 –

– taken March 15, 2008 –

– snapped May 8, 2008 –

– taken May 24, 2008, celebrating Kathy Zizzi’s brithday –

… also from May 24, 2008:

– taken July 4, 2008

— See our post “what is it about sunsets” (September 28, 2008) for a half dozen photos with lovely shades or pink and orange, in the Mohawk River and the skies above Riverside Park.

Admit it, you still haven’t taken our advice and headed over to see the March 2008 edition of The Heron’s Nest (Vol. X, No. 1). Here’s our final installment of haiku by f/k/a Honored Guest Poets from the newest THN. Consider yourself teased and nagged.

teenagers
holding up a wall
first dandelion leaf

thin moon
a harrier hawk
working the field

…………………… by paul m.

paying the last bill
on the kitchen table
winter solstice

…………… by Yu Chang

rain patter
on the windshield
. . . second lie

……………. by roberta beary

Finally, a bonus by paul m. from Called Home (Red Moon Press 2006)

sprng rain
a detention pond
built by WPA

coffee berries
the conversation turns
to another ill friend

waiting for the heron
to turn my way —
winter rain

… by paul m. from called home (Red Moon Press 2006)

update (Aug. 11, 2008): See our post “9 Front St. stars on History Detectives tonight”

prior updates: You can see the Stockade Blockhouse Investigation on History Detectives on August 11, 2008 (at 9 PM on Schenectady’s WMHT-17; check its schedule for encore presentations). The Schenectady Daily Gazette covers the story again, in the article “Home’s link to past focus of PBS program” (Aug. 8, 2008).

It started two years ago, when Schenectady City Historian Don Rittner glimpsed this blue stone outer wall through a lattice fence at 9 Front Street, in my Schenectady Historic Stockade District neighborhood. It resulted in a crew from the PBS program History Detectives filming a segment yesterday afternoon that will air this summer. See “PBS program digging into Stockade home’s past” (Schenectady Daily Gazette, by Justin Mason, March 5, 2008; photo of participants); and “PBS filming home in Stockade” (Albany Times Union, March 4, 2008)

the cold night
comes out of the stones
all morning

…….. by jim kacian – Presents of Mind (1996)

[large] As the Gazette reported yesterday, “Rittner now believes the stucco facade of Daniel Partington and Sharon Cole’s home is concealing a former British Army blockhouse that could be among the oldest structures in the county. And his work has caught the attention of a nationally syndicated program exploring extraordinary objects in everyday homes.” [Click here for a large photo of the hidden stonework that started Rittner’s investigation.]

Partington and Cole (who is a speech therapist and a native of the UK) had thought their home dated back to the 1890s, which is not very old by Stockade standards. But, a number of “peculiar discoveries” made them believe the building might be much older — including hand-hewn hemlock beams in the house’s basement, stonework that extended from the foundation to the attic, “where he found newspapers from the early 1820s wedged between the rocks,” and two-feet-thick exterior stone walls in a portion of the house.

Because stone is scarce in this part of the country, it was almost exclusively used for military fortifications. But, the origins of 9 Front Street may have been hidden by “improvements” over the years. As the Gazette article explains:

“An addition was built on the rear of the home and its exterior was almost completely covered with stucco, giving it a distinctly Victorian appearance. Rittner said the only thing that prevented the building’s stonework exterior from being completely obscured was the small, foot-wide space between the couple’s house and the building next door, which apparently prevented workers from applying the stucco.”

old wall–
for no particular reason
fireflies visit

….. by Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

The Gazette article gives more details from this detective tale, along with speculation about the house, which might be the oldest building in Schenectady, and date back to a time when “British and Dutch traders maintained a very tentative foothold in the area.” The evidence was enough to bring History Detectives to Schenectady, with co-host Elyse Luray spending two days “reviewing Rittner’s work and examining the house for a 20-minute segment on the show,” which will air this summer, during its 6th season. Luray says:

“When this airs, the rest of the country will know that Schenectady was one of the first American frontiers. . . . You never know what you’ll find in your attic.”

I’m sorry that I learned about the filming too late yesterday afternoon to walk about four houses down the block to do some gawking. It inspired me, however, to take a few photos of the house for this posting (plus this one), and to dig up a handful of haiku that seemed to capture its/my mood.

the cloudburst
scrubs it clean…
the old house

one by one
even the cats come home…
cold nights

dawn–
through a hole in the wall
the cold

my house’s rear wall–
the dirty snow
holds on

thin wall–
with the moonlight comes
the cold

well hidden
by the spring mist…
grave tablet

…….. by Kobayashi Issa, translated by David G. Lanoue

a blue ceiling
where the roof-beams
have collapsed

drifted snow
the welcome disappears
from the doormat

falling leaves
the house comes
out of the woods

…….. by jim kacian – Presents of Mind (1996)

– pbs History Detectives – with Elyse Luray –

mid october
the shadow of a wrecking ball
on the stadium facade

……. by ed markowski

for sale
an old house with creaky stairs
and a cricket

…. by George Swede – Almost Unseen (Brooks Books, 2000)

update (08/08/08): Here’s coverage of the show from WMHT’s member magazine, Outlook (August 2008, at p. 4; pdf. download, with photo of Sharon and Dan in front of 9 Front St.):

HISTORY DETECTIVES: FRONT STREET BLOCKHOUSE airing Monday, August 11th from 9- 10 pm, explores when a couple in Schenectady, New York purchased their dream house in the town’s historic district, they believed their home was built for a middle class family in the late 19th century, like all other homes in their neighborhood. But four mysterious stone walls visible in the attic have led them to believe that this might not be the case.

HISTORY DETECTIVES host Elyse Luray travels to upstate New York to determine whether this unassuming structure may have helped ensure the survival of the town of schenectady, a 17th- and 18th-century vanguard Dutch outpost, as it fought France and her Indian allies for control of the lucrative fur trade. History Detectives: Front street Blockhouse

U.C. v. G.R.S.

One candidate was quite icy, showing little emotion, and was the early choice of “party” regulars; the other was a giant and media star, with a famously positive demeanor and message. In mid-February, as early voters cast their ballots, the rivals were only one vote apart. If Barack Obama’s strategists had paid attention over the weekend, the results last night might have been very different.

You see, when the votes were tallied early March 1st, it was a rout: the candidate with rustbelt, blue-collar appeal had 66% of the votes, while the favorite of the elite college crowd only attracted 29%. It seems they can party, and caucus, and rave (and even make lots of videos), but those younguns just don’t show up when and where it counts to actually vote.

388 (29%) . . . . . . . 874 (66%)

It didn’t matter that the winner had in fact disappeared before election day. The Today’s Snowman worldwide Snowman Contest for February 2008 demonstrated once again the fundamental importance of having a big, wide base and then getting that base to the polls to vote.

march thaw
the dirty snow on top
melts last

….. by dagosan

[orig.] Now, the story behind the last-minute electoral tidal wave that catapulted the Great Rotterdam Snowman to an overwhelming victory over the candidate from the University of Colorado can be told. As an article last week in the Schenectady Daily Gazette reported, Jeff Older of Donald Drive, in the Schenectady suburb of Rotterdam, NY, built the now departed GRS, with his kids, while Chris Moskoff and a group of 12 U.C. alumni built the contender from Aspen. ‘Great Snowman’ leads in online contest: Local entry battling Rocky Mountain foe” (Schenectady Daily Gazette, by Justin Mason, February 27, 2008). Bob Eckstein (author of The History of the Snowman) has tracked the battle between the UC Snowman and GRS, who were the main contenders in his Today’s Snowman weblog February Snowman Contest. See “University of Colorado Vs. Rotterdam” (Feb. 17, 2008); “The Finger Pointing Continues” (Feb. 27, 2008).

In our posting on Feb. 24th, we told f/k/a’s readers about the contest, noting that there had been mud-slinging, with the UC crowd insinuating that a dad and his kids could not have lifted the top sections of a snowman that they claimed to be 12-feet tall. [Older rebutted that slur in the Gazette, explaining that they had taken “an atypical approach in their creation by first building a towering snow cone and then carving out the snowman.” Indeed, Eckstein drove for eight hours to measure the snowman in person a few weeks ago, and validated it’s size at a dozen feet tall.]

naughty child–
instead of his chores
a snow Buddha

….. by Kobayashi Issa – translated by David G. Lanoue

What politics? As you surely have noticed, the f/k/a Gang has been a little antsy since we sworn off political and legal-ethics punditry back on Christmas Eve, with a bit too much time on our hands. Our three-part snowman (r)evolution series was one consequence of our idle minds, and led us to discover Eckstein book and weblog. While we might have promised not to post about politics (hmmm, we did, didn’t we), we never promised not to work on a campaign in the real world, nor in another part of cyberspace. So, when we saw that the UC Snowman and GRS were only one vote apart as of Feb. 21, 2008 (see “UC vs. Rotterdam Update“), and realized that our local candidate was being slurred, and facing a bunch of web-savvy elitists, while getting no publicity here in Schenectady County, Prof. Yabut decided he had to help even the playing field (or maybe tilt it a bit).

in the howling wind
under the full moon
the snowman, headless

…….. by George Swede from Almost Unseen

[larger photo] A quick check at the Rotterdam Community Internet Forum confirmed that no one had brought up the topic of their local Great Snowman at that busy website, as of the morning of February 24, 2008, with only 5 days remaining in the election. Therefore, shortly after completing our posting on the subject, Prof. Yabut emailed Jo-Ann Schrom, the Board Moderator, to tell her about this epic battle. In a couple of hours, a new topic page appeared at the Rotterdam forum, entitled “Vote for the Great Rotterdam Snowman.” It printed the text of a couple of Eckstein’s posts about the contest, and linked to the f/k/a piece. That attention attracted the Gazette reporter, and resulted in Main Stream Media coverage. The rest is, indeed, snowman electoral history. From a virtual tie, GRS supporters gave the Rotterdam giant a 2 to 1 landslide (which is not a word usually used in polite snowperson society). (update: March 6, 2008: the Daily Gazette‘s reports on the victory of GRS, posted here.)

one smirking snowman
and one
hatless scarecrow

…………… by dagosan

What lessons? This post is already too long, and we’ve sworn not to pundificate about politics this election season. So, you will all have to draw the obvious conclusions on your own — hopefully before the spring thaw melts away any additional smiling giants. (If you have the stomach and appetite for more political punditry today, we suggest checking out Prof. Ann Althouse, who has just taken a vow of “cruel neutrality,” which might indeed be worse than either benign or malignant neglect.)

p.s. Jeff Older, the creator of The Great Rotterdam Snowman has told Today’s Snowman that “Our goal next year is to go for the tallest snowman/snow-woman in the world.” And, speaking of audiacity and hope, Bob Eckstein leaked that Jeff also “plans to build a college campus, by himself, larger than the University of Colorado, once the weather warms up. Updates will be provided here exclusively at Today’s Snowman.”

– speaking of super-delegates: [ original photo by Alison Shumway, via Chad]

he’s holding one
snowball…
the Buddha

…. by Kobayashi Issa – translated by David G. Lanoue